1. Field
This application relates to a novel toilet attachment for a male user to raise a toilet seat, by depressing effortlessly and leisurely a pedal with a foot, while standing well balanced on his second foot, in a manner that he can urinate comfortably with both feet on the floor, away from the pedal; and then to lower the same seat by depressing effortlessly and leisurely the same unmistakable pedal again; with all these actions done with no startling noise against the water tank or the toilet bowl rim. The dual operation of the same pedal also provides, if desired, a timely flushing of the toilet automatically when the seat is lowered, without hand touching any part of the toilet system. With the basic embodiment in place, it is easy to add, by way of a secondary pedal, a hands-free flushing system that can be operated without moving the toilet seat when it is already in the lowered position.
2. Prior Art
Hands-free operation of raising and lowering a toilet seat has been recognized and described in great details in prior art as a real sanitary need and proper courtesy practice for home use and in public restrooms. Some interesting thoughts may be quoted verbatim from non-copyrighted prior art. For example:
From U.S. Pat. No. 5,781,938 to Anderson: “Since the development of the hinged toilet seat, a relatively minor skirmish in the battle of the sexes has been waged over the issue of whether or not the seat (and in some cases, the lid also) should be left in its lowered position after use. Many men leave the seat up after urination, as this is the normal and customary way of using the toilet for such purpose. Women, however, universally use the toilet with the seat in its lowered position, and have come to expect to find the seat, if not the lid also, in the lowered position when they enter the bathroom. Many a man have found it necessary to revise his habits relating to such when living with a woman in the same household, and the habit is not an easy one for men to revise in many cases, even with numerous reminders from the distaff side of the household.”
From U.S. Pat. No. 5,978,974 to Mullen: “A common concern of women, who share toilet facilities with men, is that men tend to leave the toilet seat in the raised position. If a woman does not notice that the toilet seat is raised, she risks falling into the bowl and potentially becoming injured by attempting to sit on the toilet when the seat is raised.
A common problem faced by men when raising a toilet seat is that they must touch the actual seat, thus potentially receiving bacteria and other germs from the seat. In addition, people who have difficulty in bending over find it difficult to raise a toilet seat in the traditional way.”
From U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,146 to Pilkington et al: “It is generally known that many persons find it objectionable to handle any part of a toilet, particularly a public toilet that may be used by all types of persons with various habits of cleanliness. In view of the fact that the toilet seat should be raised when a man is in the act of urinating, devices are available for lifting the toilet seat when a pedal is depressed.”
From U.S. Pat. No. 5,075,906 to Robbins: “Conventionally, a user intending to avoid touching of the seat, will use his feet, loose sticks or the like in order to raise or lower the seat. 
Using a person's shoe or stick is extremely rudimentary and is not always successful in raising or lowering the seat in a convenient manner and one which will not break or damage the seat.”
In a survey of the market, there are a few hands-free attachments for raising and/or lowering a toilet seat on some websites. This surveying was done, for example, by entering a search engine the term “toilet seat lifter”. These attachments and numerous relevant U.S. patents and their cited prior art reveal no single embodiment that can satisfy the majority or all of the desirable features. Among some prominent patents in prior art, a few can be singled out as better than others, yet still can be seen as obviously deficient of the features to be improved upon.
For the purpose of providing raising and lowering a toilet seat, U.S. Pat. No. 7,367,066 to Reid requires one foot to be on the pedal after the seat is raised for urinating. This is understandably hazardous and rejected vehemently by potential users.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,331,067 to Pantos uses a single pedal for both raising and lowering a toilet seat. Shown in the patent writing as well as in the video found on the Internet, it has the drawback of requiring a lengthy foot travel in depressing the pedal to raise the seat and unusually awkward, non-intuitive, lifting of the same pedal in whatever way, to lower the seat. The lengthy foot travel needed in the seat raising operation can cause a user to lose his or her balance without the hand of the user holding onto something, or from balancing the arms in a way different from those normally found on a man about to urinate. It is awkward and difficult to lower the seat, especially in low-light environments. It further requires toilet seats to be specially made, or conventional seats to be permanently modified.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,254,846 to Kim seems desirably simple; but requires two separate pedals located near each other. It is thus proven as confusing and presenting possible interference between the two pedals when one being pushed down would cause forcedly the other one to go up. It has no anti-slamming provision in the form of a shock absorber. It lacks even the basic ability by foot to restrain the violent going-down movement of the seat, once it is initiated to fall forward. This fact can be seen easily by analyzing FIG. 2 of that patent.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,336 to Marke et al, seems more viable than many others. It claims not to impede the raising or lowering of the seat by hand. However, a latch is shown for keeping the seat latched in the vertical position. This latch can be destroyed, if, after a seat is raised and latched, this seat lowering is initiated inadvertently by hand then followed by the weight of the seat. Furthermore, after a few operations in real life, its use of a suction cup to aid the lowering of the seat can be seen as undependable and unreliable.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,444,877 to Kumarasurier uses a single pedal for sequentially raising and lowering the seat, but suffers from not being able to use existing toilet seat without extensive modifications. It requires numerous mechanical components to be made and assembled with precision with additional expenses; and the speed in lowering the seat needs to be controlled with a foot on the pedal.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,339,468 to Lin uses a single pedal for sequentially raising and lowering the seat; but suffers from not being able to use existing toilet seats without extensive modifications. It cannot be installed on the left side of the toilet bowl, or on different heights of the toilet bowls easily. Furthermore, its linkages to the seat and flushing handle cannot be covered aesthetically. These linkages prevent the manual use of the flushing handle (also called the trip lever) and the manual lifting and lowering of the seat may cause the mechanisms to break easily.
Specific Goals of the Invention
Obviously, the prior art suffers from several disadvantages, and a long-standing need has existed to provide a novel means to overcome and avoid these disadvantages. The list of issues to deal with is established below as a real wish list of desiderata.
An issue of prime import is that most men would raise the seat of a toilet from a standing position and remain standing in a steady position on their two feet for comfort, stability, and a hazard-free urination.
Another issue with any hands-free system is that the operation of any device should be the least confusing possible. Specifically, if foot actuation is used, non-critical and effortless successive depressions of a single pedal for raising as well as lowering of the seat would prove to be most intuitive for users.
Another commercially viable feature is the raising and lowering of the seat without slamming the seat against the toilet water tank or toilet bowl rim with a disquieting noise and potentially destructive impact force.
It would be also a great bonus to users if beyond all the above qualities, a hands-free way of flushing the toilet simultaneously with the foot pedaling to lower the seat; or foot pedaling a distinctly unmistakable lever, after using the toilet when its seat is already in the down position. This is especially of great help for people, male or female, who cannot bend down easily to manually lift the toilet seat or push the flushing handle, due to disabilities, handicaps or arthritis.
It is also desirable that any attachment for hands-free toilet operations should not damage itself in any way, and should not resist with any unusual strength to the operations on the seat, lid, and flushing when they are manually actuated in the conventionally familiar manner of users who are unaware of, who intuitively expect the best from, or who ignore deliberately, the operations of the system attachment on the toilet. These last features are necessary for any toilet attachment to be acceptable for purchase by buyers, instead of being cursed with derogatory remarks as a poorly-designed or overly-mechanistic fixture.
Another desirable feature is the foot-actuated raising of the seat followed by an inadvertent lowering of the seat by hand and carrying on by the weight of the seat, or the inadvertent manual raising the seat followed by a foot pedal action which systematically is designed to raise the seat, should not damage any part of the mechanism or upset any of subsequent operations of the attachment.
Adding to the desirability is the hands-free actuation of raising and lowering both the toilet's seat and lid at the same time for safety concerns for kids or pets.
Beyond all these features, other design criteria such as: low cost; high quality; easy and quick installation on either side of the majority of conventional toilets of any height; requiring no modification of the toilet or surrounding structure; low maintenance; great durability; pleasing appearance and ease of cleaning; provision for easy cleaning of surrounding space; resistance to water splashing and cleaning chemicals around bathrooms; free standing that will not require bolting onto the floor; would be realistically desirable.
The present invention aims at making this wish list of desiderata a reality, using low-cost mechanical multi-bar linkages and memories in binary logic. Made out of rustproof and self-lubricating materials, these elements, when designed to function in binary states, are mathematically easy to calculate for lower bill of materials as well as for better reliability and durability. The result is an inexpensive novel attachment that works with unmodified conventional toilet seats; uses no electricity; provides as much as possible the freedom from hand touching anything other than clean toilet paper; at the same time satisfies all the desiderata listed above.